Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity today to speak to Bill C-7 before the House.
Just before I start, I note that the most recent question was whether or not it was wise to consult Canadians. Yet the government has not even consulted the provinces when talking about making massive changes to the Senate and its functions.
The rub in this particular legislation is that it all sounds very simple. In fact, if we look at the summary to the legislation it merely says that part 1 of the enactment is to provide that the Prime Minister, in recommending Senate nominees to the Governor General for a province or territory, as if the Prime Minister did not make the nominations and put them into effect, would be required to consider names from a list of nominees submitted by the provincial or territorial government. The list of nominees would be determined by an election held in accordance with provincial or territorial laws.
Therefore, what we have here is what a famous Canadian once called “meddling with the constitution”. That man is considered one of the fathers of Confederation, none other than Sir John A. Macdonald. He talked about certain proposals coming forward prior to Confederation in the Province of Canada, between Upper and Lower Canada. Suggestions were made for some changes based on representation by population. It was really about changing the balance, in this particular case, between Upper and Lower Canada, or Quebec and Ontario. It was being proposed in some other fashion, not directly, but the idea was to change the nature of the Constitution.
Sir John A. quite rightly identified this as meddling with the constitution. That is what is happening here. What is the effect of this legislation? Is it to improve the situation in Canada? Do we have a circumstance that requires adjustment by saying that we will appoint only senators who are elected in a province? Is that what the people are crying out for? Do we want to have a Senate now that has six members from Alberta, six members from B.C., six members from Manitoba, and ten from New Brunswick and four from P.E.I.? Are we going to improve things by saying they would be chosen from those who have been elected? Therefore, in the Senate we would have B.C. with six senators and P.E.I. with four. That is the representation we are going to have in the Senate, and we would start to give them legitimacy by saying they were chosen from people who were elected in the provinces.
That is going to be a muddle if ever there were one. If John A. Macdonald were here today that is what he would call it. He would say this is “meddling with the constitution”. If the bill passes, we do not know what the real effect is going to be, but it will give some legitimacy to senators, or at least the senators will think they have legitimacy. They will say they were elected by the people of Prince Edward Island or British Columbia, or at least that they “won” an election, because they are not allowed to be elected. A senator will say, “I am one of six senators and should therefore be able to flex my constitutional muscle in the Senate”.
That person will be up against someone from Prince Edward Island who will say: “I was elected. I won an election in Prince Edward Island. I am one of four. I have a vote in the Senate and my vote is just as important as yours. We collectively are going to have legitimacy because we were elected”.
What is that going to do to our constitution? It would muddle it at the very least and delegitimize this place, the House of Commons, the elected representatives of the people making the law. We have a Senate down the hall, “the other place” I think we are supposed to refer to it politely. We are not allowed to utter its name because it is the other place. That is the tradition here.
The tradition also is that the other place is supposed to defer to the House of Commons. That is the convention. If we look at the Constitution, it says they have equal powers, but the constitutional convention is that they are not supposed to be exercising those powers.
What have we had in the last couple of years? We have had a government that has been using the Senate as a tool to defeat the majority in the House of Commons. We saw that in the last Parliament. The climate change action bill was passed by the House, and what did the government do? It used its majority in the Senate to kill the bill. The will of the House of Commons, the elected people of Canada, was defeated by appointed people in the other place.
Who are they? They are appointed at the whim of the Prime Minister. Never mind the language about the Prime Minister “recommending” nominees to the Governor General. We know what that means: anyone who is recommended by the Prime Minister to the Governor General is appointed to the Senate. I do not even think they are called appointments. Instead, they are called to the Senate. I do not mean to mock this, but that is the way the system is set up. Senators are clearly appointed by the Prime Minister based on whatever whim he has. This legislation says he would have to consider nominees who have won an election in a province. Some of them are recognizable people, such as defeated Conservative candidates, for example.
The former member for Avalon in my province was defeated in an election and appointed to the Senate. Then he resigned and ran in the last election. He was defeated again and re-appointed to the Senate. In my province that is not regarded very highly. It is not regarded as democratic that someone can become a senator because he is a defeated Conservative candidate who is rewarded for his loyalty by being put in the Senate, where he can serve for as long as the Constitution allows.
That is the body the government wants to give legitimacy to by saying that the persons chosen could potentially or possibly be from among those who have been elected. This is meddling with the Constitution, because senators and others have talked about how we will have differential senators as a result, some appointed until age 75 because they were appointed 20, 10 or 5 years ago, and then those who are appointed from a list of elected candidates. Not all provinces are happy with this. British Columbia does not seem to be happy about this. Quebec is not happy with it. In fact, it is saying it is going to take it to court to challenge the constitutionality of it.
There was a time when the Reform Party talked about a triple-E Senate: equal, effective and elected. That was the model and I think it has been rejected. What are we trying to salvage? Is it the notion that we can reform a body that ought to be abolished, like every other senate in Canada has been abolished? Every other province had the equivalent to the Senate. Most of them were called legislative councils and some were called other things, but the provinces got rid of them and we now have what are called unicameral legislatures across the country.
Democracy has not suffered; democracy has been enhanced. In fact, these senates or legislative councils were initially aimed in part to be a brake on democracy, to the effect that “We cannot let commoners pass laws unless the aristocracy and the establishment have an opportunity to veto them”. That was part of the original idea. There is talk about regional balance, yes, but it was also about this other notion.
It is a fundamentally undemocratic institution and ought to be abolished. Our first step, as was mentioned, would be to ask Canadians to reflect on this issue in a referendum. It would be a first step, and not a constitutional step, by the way. Do not mistake that. It would say that New Democrats wanted to develop a national consensus on abolishing the Senate. That is our policy. This alleged reform is in fact meddling with the Constitution and ought not take place.